December 2015

February 16, 2007

Most people nowadays do not visit Nablus. It is often under curfew by the Israeli army and getting in and out through the many checkpoints surrounding it would deter all but the most determined.

Ignore the poor quality of the photograph - it is merely meant to show the many checkpoints surrounding the city of Nablus.

Nablus is one of the West Bank cities where resistance to the Israeli occupation is fiercest. We arrived in Nablus on a Friday morning following a night during which a young boy had been killed by the Israeli army. Apparently his brother had been out laying a booby trap for the tanks when he was shot. He managed to escape but the mosque mistakenly broadcast his death early morning, his younger brother distraught at the news, dashed out into the street to go look for his brother’s body. He in turn was shot, this time fatally. He was 17. This was just another night in Balata refugee camp where the wholly abnormal has become commonplace.